Just Keep Swimming A wife trying to keep a positive outlook on male-factor infertility

We are devastated. There are no words.

That’s really the best title I could think of for this post. “Exist and persist” is still my motto right now. Let me bring you up to speed.

Recovery from my retrieval was much rockier than it was last time. Before, I went to the hospital with Bobby and my friend who stayed with me the entire time. When we came home, we were put to bed and slept blissfully away as our friends took care of picking up our prescriptions and getting us soup. After they left, we were on our own. I remember gingerly moving between the couch and the kitchen, refilling Bobby’s ice and getting drinks and snacks. After a day or so, I was fine. This time, I have been in a lot of pain. After the swelling in my stomach went down, I had a lot of intense pain in my bum from the PIO shots. Then on Monday, I woke up with a strong pain in my right hip, right about where my hip flexor is. By the end of the day, I was in a lot of pain, and I slept horribly because I couldn’t sleep on my back or sides due to the PIO pain, and not on my stomach because I couldn’t straighten my leg. I was definitely not well rested for retrieval day.

After last Thursday’s egg retrieval, we ended up with 5 embryos. Only 2 ended up making it to blastocyst stage, and so on Tuesday, we transferred them both – one A/B and one B/B.  Bobby had a massive panic attack sitting in the preop area waiting for my transfer. He had instant visions of two cribs, a mini van, two daycare payments, two college tuitions. Our doctor told us that in his experience, people who transfer two blasts generally conceive twins about 20% of the time. So we decided to go all in. No guarantee that the second embryo would make it to freeze. And last time for our frozen transfer, only 1 of the 3 blasts in our straw were successfully thawed. So we rolled the dice and did both.

The transfer was as uncomfortable as I remembered it last time. My bladder was SO FULL that I actually went to the bathroom THREE times before the actual procedure and STILL was uncomfortable, filled a bedpan when the procedure was done, AND went to the bathroom before leaving. They told me to drink 20 oz of water at 8am, but I guess I should have taken into account that my bladder, being a small person, is proportionally smaller than the average woman.

After the transfer, I have been crampy and achy. I spent the whole day in bed. My abdomen was crampy, my butt hurts, I’m bloated and constipated, and that hip thing was still bugging me. The doctor said my ovary was probably inflamed from being poked and refilling with fluid. I drove Bobby and I home the next day and left Evan with my parents, and we’ve been home alone ever since. I’m not crampy so much any more, just little twinges here and there. Butt still hurts like hell, hip is not as bad. I miss Evan like crazy. We Face Time every night and he is such a ham on the camera, it almost makes me miss him more. Being home without him here feels empty and boring. I’ve been doing a lot of work for school and catching up on grading, but I’m antsy. I didn’t go back to work at all this week, so I’ve just been lying on the couch. My doctor says 5 days of pelvic rest, so no cleaning, no laundry, no errands. I do not do well with sitting still. Not at all.

So, it is what it is. I’m doing my best not to think about pregnancy symptoms, just focusing on work and missing Evan and spending time with Bobby. We went out to dinner, tomorrow we’ll go see a matinee. And, that’s it. We’re just waiting. By this time next week, we’ll know. And one way or another, this miserable journey will be over and we can move on. I’m ready.